


Ben The Redeemed

by LandryJ



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Family, Healing, Kylo Ren Redemption, Other, Redemption, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:21:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24427192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LandryJ/pseuds/LandryJ
Summary: The Emperor has just thrown Ben to the depths of the Sith Temple on Exegol, dooming him to an imminent death. But the Force was not done with Ben Solo.
Relationships: Ben Solo & Han Solo, Leia Organa & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo
Kudos: 8





	Ben The Redeemed

Ben laid motionless on the rough stone ledge, every indrawn breath an act of all the will he possessed, every exhalation full of searing pain. Palpatine had just thrown him into the depths of the temple, sending him to his imminent death. 

But the Force was not done with Ben Solo.

Miraculously, his falling body had found a protrusion of stone large enough to halt his thousand foot descent into death. 

If the Force surrounds all things, binds them all together, perhaps what had been meant for random destruction and chaos, the Force had used for its precise and immovable purpose. Perhaps this fall, this rock, this survival, was the culmination of its long laid plan for Ben Solo.

Perhaps... but the pain said otherwise.

It screamed over the whispers of the Force, telling Ben that despite his death being delayed, he could not avoid its imminence. That he should just accept it. The wounds were too much, the pain too thorough. Plus it was nothing less than he deserved for all the horrors he had inflicted. Wasn’t that right? 

No, that was the voice of Kylo talking. Not Han. Not Leia. Not Rey. Not those who never stopped seeing Ben through the cracks in Kylo’s mask.

“ _Ben!_ ” He heard the commanding voice of his father, calling his name, calling him home. 

He thought of the gentle hand he had put on his face as he… as Kylo… murdered him. Even in death, his father had seen beyond the mask, beyond the evil. He saw the boy. He saw his son. He saw Ben Solo, and his love for him was a fierce and unstoppable thing. It was its own powerful, miraculous manifestation of the Force. It was a love that saw the good in Ben even as Kylo sent Han to his death, and it was that--that inexplicable love made flesh: Han’s hand on Ben’s face--that truly began to crack through the dark lies that said he was too far gone and exposed the light of truth that said Ben Solo lived, if only he’d set him free.

“ _Ben_.” He heard the gentle voice of his mother, calling his name, calling him home.

He thought of her reaching across time and space with all the will that remained to her. Using all the life she had left to show him that, despite all he had done, she had never stopped loving her son. That she, like his father, by calling his name, his true name, spoke a truth that said she never believed Ben Solo to be truly gone. Her love for him was immovable, it was the light side of the Force incarnate, and it could not be overcome. 

Then a flash, a vision into the black canvas of his shut tight eyes. He saw Rey. It was unfamiliar. Not a memory. Something else.

“ _Ben_.” She said through a smiling face, calling his name, calling him… no… _telling_ him... he was home. 

The vision floated away like mist and Ben opened his eyes. Rey! The thought crashed suddenly over him, into him with more force than even his piercing, jolting fall. She was alone. Facing Palpatine alone. He had survived for a reason. She was the reason. He had to get to her. Help her. Be with her. Hold her. He realized it, then, that ever-present truth he had tried so hard to suppress. He loved her. 

He truly, deeply loved her.

But as he started to will his body upward, it immediately gave out and he fell flat once again. He shut his watery eyes tight, tears slipping out their sides and down his jaw, dripping from his quivering chin. He now had to accept the impossible, taunting truth. He was going to die here, on this rock. He was not going to help Rey, he was never going to tell her how much he loved her and that he could never have become Ben again without her. It was a suffocating truth that made him curse the Force for not letting him fall to his death. The pain was physical, it was spiritual, it was thorough and it was total. 

Then he felt it.

Hands under his shoulders, lifting him up with gentle ease. Ben’s breath quickened. What was this? Some physical manifestation of the Force willing him to rise? He clutched at his stomach as he sat up, wincing at the pain where he had been hit and punctured by rocks. Then he felt it again. Not just hands, but arms wrapping around his midsection, wrapping around his wounds, easing the pain. Healing him. 

They lifted him up to his feet and a new energy, a new life coursed throughout his body. The screaming pain became a distant echo. An echo that could no longer keep him from rising. 

_Rise!_ The Force said, and he lifted his foot on to a rock to begin climbing. To get back to her. _Rise, Ben Solo!_ It said once more. _Rise and save her!_

He was climbing now, several feet above the rock from which he thought he’d never rise. The rock where Kylo Ren was finally, truly destroyed, and Ben Solo had risen again. He dared a glance back down at it and sucked in a quick sharp breath at the shock of what he saw.

“Told you I’d see you around, kid.” Luke said. He winked. He vanished. 

He had somewhere else to be.


End file.
